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On Friday I managed to go to see Interstellar, at the cinema, a rarity for me these days. And it was
a mighty long experience, so much so that I misjudged the starting time of the
film and the amount of parking I needed and was haunted during the film by the
promise of a ticket upon the return to the car. (I was lucky.) Quite
appropriately, while I was watching the film I was also still in the past (why
did I think the film started earlier?) and rehearsing the future (this film is
going to cost me £50. But it might not…). This didn’t impair my enjoyment of
the movie, though. Although I understand and agree with many of the criticisms of the
film – though I have to say its liberties with science don’t bother me – I liked
its scale, Matthew McConaughey (Coop) and Anne Hathaway (Brand) in the central
roles, the use of the robots, and in particular the ‘realistic’ look of the
spaceship interiors. Some of the effects sequences were quite exciting, such as
the re-docking with the spinning …

It would be difficult to overstate just how angry and heart-sick I am as I write. I've long been guilty of over-investing in work, not just in critical activity and writing but in the satisfactions of teaching, of feeling that you're helping students to understand and investigate the world and our culture, and of doing your best for and by them; when I was Examinations Officer, for instance, or in advising PhD students, or simply chatting to students about things. This over-investment has had serious personal side-effects, but has acted as a kind of alibi for the time I've spent dealing with the river of thoughts that flows through my head, believing that by turning them outwards that they might mean something, not just to me. This blog is an example of that, I suppose.

It's not uncommon, I would think, among academics. The lines between home and work life, between everyday activity and critical activity, become blurred; to the extent that it is difficult to switch off…